How to Rename a Drive in Windows 10
A drive name or drive label is a unique name of up to 32 (NTFS) or 11 (FAT) characters assigned to a drive, disc, or other media connected to the computer.
Every drive and storage device on your computer has a friendly name (aka: label) to make it easier to recognize.
Starting with Windows 10 build 21343, Microsoft is updating File Explorer (Win+E) when renaming drives to now support using CTRL + Left / Right arrow to move your cursor between words in the drive name, as well as CTRL + Delete and CTRL + Backspace to delete words at a time, like other places in Windows.
This tutorial will show you different ways to rename a drive label in Windows 10.
When you rename a drive in Windows, the name cannot contain any of the following characters: \ / : * ? " < > |
You must be signed in as an administrator to rename a drive.
You will not be able to change the name of a CD/DVD drive with any of these options.
For a Windows 11 version of this tutorial, see:
Rename Drive or Volume Label in Windows 11
Contents
- Option One: Rename a Drive using Keyboard Shortcut
- Option Two: Rename a Drive from File Explorer Ribbon
- Option Three: Rename a Drive with Two Single Clicks
- Option Four: Rename a Drive from Context Menu
- Option Five: Rename a Drive in Properties
- Option Six: Rename a Drive in Command Prompt
- Option Seven: Rename a Drive in PowerShell
- Option Eight: Specify a Drive Label using autorun.inf file
- Option Nine: Rename a Drive in Settings
1 Open This PC in File Explorer (Win+E). (see screenshot below)
2 Select the drive you want to rename.
3 Press the F2 key.
4 Type a new name for the drive, and press Enter.
5 If prompted, click/tap on Continue to allow. (see screenshot below)
1 Open This PC in File Explorer (Win+E).
2 Select the drive you want to rename.
3 Click/tap on the Computer tab, and click/tap on the Rename button in the ribbon. (see screenshot below)
4 Type a new name for the drive, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
5 If prompted, click/tap on Continue to allow. (see screenshot below)
This option is only available if you selected to Double-click to open an item (single-click to select) instead of Single-click to open an item (point to select).
1 Open This PC in File Explorer (Win+E).
2 Click/tap on the drive you want to rename once to select it. (see screenshot below)
3 Wait at least one second, and then click/tap on the drive name text to rename it.
4 Type a new name for the drive , and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
5 If prompted, click/tap on Continue to allow. (see screenshot below)
1 Open This PC in File Explorer (Win+E).
2 Select the drive you want to rename.
3 Perform the action you want to do below: (see screenshot below)
A) Right click or press and hold on the selected drive , and either press the M key or click/tap on Rename.
OR
B) Press and hold Shift key and right click on the selected drive , release the Shift key, and either press the M key or click/tap on Rename.
4 Type a new name for the drive, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
5 If prompted, click/tap on Continue to allow. (see screenshot below)
1 Do step 2 (This PC) or step 3 (Disk Management) below for how you want to open properties of the drive you want to rename.
A) Open This PC in File Explorer (Win+E).
B) Right click or press and hold on the drive you want to rename, click/tap on Properties, and go to step 4 below. (see screenshot below)
A) Open the Win+X Quick Link menu, and click/tap on Disk Management.
B) Right click or press and hold on the drive you want to rename, click/tap on Properties, and go to step 4 below. (see screenshot below)
4 Type a new name for the drive, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)
5 If prompted, click/tap on Continue to allow. (see screenshot below)
For more usage details about the Label command, see: Label | Microsoft Docs
1 Open an elevated command prompt.
2 Type the command below in the elevated command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
label <DriveLetter>: New name
Substitute <DriveLetter> in the command above with the drive letter of the drive you want to rename.
Substitute New name in the command above with the label you want to rename the drive with. You can leave this empty to have a default label (ex: Local Disk) for the drive.
For example:label E: My Backups
3 When finished, you can close the elevated command prompt if you like.
For more usage details about the Set-Volume command, see: Set-Volume | Microsoft Docs
1 Open an elevated PowerShell.
2 Do step 3 (rename by drive label) or step 4 (rename by drive letter) below for which command you want to use to rename the drive.
A) Type the command below in the elevated PowerShell, press Enter, and go to step 5 below. (see screenshot below)
Set-Volume -FileSystemLabel "<Current drive name>" -NewFileSystemLabel "<New drive name>"
Substitute <Current drive name> in the command above with the current name of the drive.
Substitute <New drive name> in the command above with the label you want to rename the drive with. You can leave this empty to have a default label (ex: Local Disk) for the drive.
For example:
Set-Volume -FileSystemLabel "Backup" -NewFileSystemLabel "My Backups"
OR
Set-Volume -FileSystemLabel "Backup" -NewFileSystemLabel ""
A) Type the command below in the elevated PowerShell, press Enter, and go to step 5 below. (see screenshot below)
Set-Volume -DriveLetter <DriveLetter> -NewFileSystemLabel "<New drive name>"
Substitute <DriveLetter> in the command above with the drive letter of the drive you want to rename.
Substitute <New drive name> in the command above with the label you want to rename the drive with. You can leave this empty to have a default label (ex: Local Disk) for the drive.
For example:
Set-Volume -DriveLetter E -NewFileSystemLabel "My Backups"
OR
Set-Volume -DriveLetter E -NewFileSystemLabel ""
5 When finished, you can close the elevated PowerShell if you like.
This option will override all the options above.
This option is helpful for external or removable drives that you want to always have the same drive label no matter what Windows PC you connect the drive to.
1 Open This PC in File Explorer (Win+E).
2 Click/tap on the View tab, and check the File name extensions box in the ribbon. (see screenshot below)
3 Open the drive (ex: E ) you want to rename, right click or press and hold on an empty area in the drive, click/tap on New, and click/tap on Text Document. (see screenshot below)
If you already have a autorun.inf file in the root directory of this drive, then skip this step, and go to step 5 below instead.
4 Right click or press and hold on the New Text Document.txt file, click/tap on Rename, rename it to autorun.inf, and click/tap on Yes to confirm changing the file extension. (see screenshots below)
5 Open the autorun.inf file to edit it.
6 Type the separate lines below into the opened autorun.inf file.
Code:[autorun] label="drive name"If you already have a autorun.inf file, then you would only add or change the label line.
If you wanted to remove this drive label, you can either remove the label line or delete the autorun.inf file.
Substitute drive name in the label line above with the actual name you want for the drive.
For example:
[autorun]
label="My Backups"
7 Click/tap on File, click/tap on Save, and close the opened autorun.inf file. (see screenshot below)
8 Restart the computer to apply. If this is for a removable drive, then you could just disconnect and reconnect the drive instead.
This option is only available starting with Windows 10 build 20197.
1 Open Settings, and click/tap on the System icon.
2 Click/tap on Storage on the left side, and click/tap on the Manage Disks and Volumes link on the right side. (see screenshot below)
3 Expand open the disk (ex: "Disk 2") that contains the volume you want to change the drive label name of. (see screenshot below)
4 Click/tap on the drive (ex: "F") you want to change the drive label name of, and click/tap on Properties. (see screenshot below)
5 Click/tap on the Change label button under the Volume Data section. (see screenshot below)
6 Type in a new label name you want for this drive, and click/tap on Apply. (see screenshot below)
7 You can now close Settings if you like.
That's it,
Shawn Brink
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